


Loud Places

by ipsilateral



Category: Actor RPF
Genre: sad sack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 11:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13339974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ipsilateral/pseuds/ipsilateral
Summary: Timothée rubs his chin and finally says, "Just -- I don't know. Man. I guess I wanted to win."He shakes his head and smiles, mostly because it's dumb how difficult that is to say out loud. Of course he wanted it. He wants lots of things. None of them are easy to admit.





	Loud Places

Armie leans in close and yells, "You okay?"

"Yeah, of course," Timothée yells back over the ambient noise. He even makes the 'OK' sign with his hand to reiterate how okay he is. 

Armie looks skeptical. He's probably just referring to losing on primetime television. Which, sure, is a bummer, but Timothée is also sweaty and drunk and trying not to think about how well Armie is pulling off that stupid suit. Meanwhile, Armie seems totally fine, having mastered the art of appearing sober even when blacked out.

("Only applies to alcohol, though," Armie told him once. "At Bonnaroo 2012, I popped a bunch of ecstasy, then spent the entire day hiding in a Porta-Potty and googling different breeds of horses on my phone for absolutely no fucking reason.").

Imagining Armie freaking out makes him feel marginally better. Timothée rubs his chin and finally says, "Just -- I don't know. Man. I guess I wanted to win."

He shakes his head and smiles, mostly because it's dumb how difficult that is to say out loud. Of course he wanted it. He wants lots of things. None of them are easy to admit.

"Duh." Armie rolls his eyes. "That's everyone in here, dude. We dress up and sit through a three-hour dinner and get wasted to soothe our wounds when we lose."

"It's nice to be nominated," Timothée says goofily.

"Save that weak shit for post-show interviews," Armie laughs. "But seriously. There's no shame in wanting something and saying you want it."

"Fine, but only because it's you. And because of _theeese_ ," Timothée sings in falsetto, wiggling a champagne flute between his fingers before draining it. 

"Hey," he adds, and feels all sweaty again when Armie meets his eyes. "Hey. I really, really wanted you to win."

"Yeah. Me too," Armie says after a beat. He smiles and knocks his shoulder against Timothée's.

Everyone else at the party is dutifully circling around, keeping each conversation under fifteen minutes. They should probably go socialize. Instead, he studies Armie's face, tries to map it into his memory to pick apart later. 

Drinking tends to make him dramatic and prone to overanalysis. It turns him into the guy who goes home and perseverates over everything he'd done earlier in the night, wondering if he was too goofy, too loud, too whatever. It's not even midnight but his brain already has tons of ammunition. 

Someone switches out his empty champagne glass for a full one, and then it's a slippery slope from there. Timothée briefly returns to consciousness when Pauline is helping him back to his room hours later, but that's the last thing he remembers.

*

When he wakes up, his tongue is dry and puckered, like he fell asleep with one of those dentist suction things in his mouth for the entire night. 

Drunk Timothée had taken careful steps to hang up his suit in the closet and stash his shoes away in a corner by the door. Drunk Timothée had also thought ahead to draw the blackout curtains almost perfectly. There's only a sliver of superpowered LA sunlight blasting onto the carpet and even that is verging on too much.

"Good job, Timo," he croaks to himself, mostly to test out his voice. It's shot. Smoking in moderation was supposed to be a New Year's resolution; clearly that's out the window already. Judging by the crypt-like feeling in his mouth, he might have actually just straight up eaten a pack of cigarettes like they were taquitos. 

His phone lights up silently on the bedside table. "No," he tells it. Then he squints until he can read the name: Armie. 

No. It's still a no. Or -- he wants it to still be a no, but the self-delusion isn't quite complete. It never is, when it comes to Armie.

He taps the edge of the phone a few times, swiveling it so he can hear better, then puts it on speaker with the volume at the lowest setting and answers with a single grunt.

"Heya."

Timothée grunts again.

"Sounds about right," Armie agrees. He sighs expansively. The sound fades and comes back in. Timothée can picture him standing up, stretching, ready to shake off a light hangover with a burrito. 

"I think I'm dead? So. If you could let everyone know, that'd be great. 'Preciate it."

Armie lip-farts, a wash of static. "Okay, fine. I'm going to call you back in two hours. That's how much time you have to get your shit together."

They hang up. Timothée stares at the phone screen until it dims and goes black. 

The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes Armie has basically ruined his life. Not in any real or tangible way, of course. A lot of the time, Armie and Elizabeth are actually the best parts of Timothée's day. But therein lies the problem.

Staying away from this particular train of thought is usually easy. He's pretty good at avoiding any serious self-confrontation about feelings and shit like any good millennial/Gen Z/whatever he is. But that avoidance is a lot harder to maintain when he's half-dead and alone in a hotel room. He doesn't know how to begin to parse all this, and has yet to find a perfect meme that really encompasses the emotions that come with making a movie about falling in love with a guy and then actually falling in love with that guy. It's gotta be out there somewhere, though. 

He falls asleep again without meaning to. When he blinks awake, the strip of sun on the carpet is a little less blinding and someone's pounding on the door with apparently no regard for his well-being. 

"Stop," he whispers, but as usual, the world ignores him and the knocking continues. Timothée finally slithers out of bed to answer the door.

"Jesus, what a sad sack," says the worst thing that's ever happened to him, before holding out a bottle of red Gatorade.

"Fuck off," Timothée complains, but he chugs the Gatorade in record time before turning around to walk back to his sweet sanctuary of a bed. Armie picks him up from behind, like Timothée's a rag doll, and carries him over instead, gentle as anything. Timothée tucks his knees in and allows himself to be placed onto the bed like Sleeping Beauty or something.

He gives Armie a dead-eyed stare once he's settled. "The only thing I'm getting out of bed for is a supersized bowl of pho."

"Then we will get you a supersized bowl of pho," Armie agrees. "Maybe in a bit. Your face is still on a weird place in the color spectrum."

He sits up against the headboard and quietly scrolls through his phone. At some point, one of his hands slides under the pillow and tangles into Timothée's own. 

"This makes me nervous," Timothe says abruptly. What he really means is, _you make me nervous_. "I mean, not the awards themselves, but the parties and talk shows and -- you know. "

"But actually yeah, the awards themselves," Armie corrects him, teasing. 

"Yeah. Yeah, no, you're right." Timothée swallows hard. "This shit is just stressful. I'm over it."

"Well. I hope we're helping more than we're hurting."

"Definitely more hurting. I mean, you guys have basically ruined my life." 

Timothée laughs, a subdued version of his open-mouthed laugh, but Armie still hits him with that goddamn _look_ that's so fucking open and tender. He can't understand how one expression can set off such a gamut of emotions -- he doesn't know if should fling himself out a window, or take a good cry shower, or excuse himself to jerk off in the bathroom.

Instead, he shifts around and turns to face the other direction. Head: meet sand. "Whoa, I'm just kidding. Chill," he says to the empty side of the room. 

"Sometimes I can't tell, you asshole. Besides, don't they say every joke has an element of truth?"

"Nah, nobody says that," Timothée dismisses. "Also, I'm like, a hundred times more hungover than you are right now. Don't blame me for being moody."

Armie concedes with a simple hum, then wiggles Timothée's hand a little. The room settles into silence except for the buzz of the air conditioner.

This past year has felt a lot like being shot out of a cannon into outer space, Timothée thinks muzzily. The trip up sure seemed great, but now he's floating around alone with nothing to anchor him. 

He's drifting off again, but he squeezes Armie's hand once for reassurance. At least he's got this.

*

The dance scene is apparently Armie's new go-to story for junkets -- "the worst scene," he always groans. But Timothée remembers a brief moment during that day, before the fifth take; a moment he'll probably never talk about with anyone else because he can't even explain why he keeps coming back to it. 

The extras were practicing dancing on beat, illuminated in soft festive lights. Timothée was wiggling around, aimless, just letting his sneakers slide across the floor. Suddenly Armie came spinning into the crowd like he was Patrick Swayze or something, yelling, "Wooooooo!"

Everyone laughed, only because they knew this was completely sarcastic, that Armie hated being out there as the center of attention. Other people, including the crew, started whooping as well and soon the whole set was cheering for no reason. Timothée joined in on the noise, blending into the crowd, and then Armie made eye contact with him. 

"Dip me, Johnny Castle," Timothée yelled, laughing.

He didn't think Armie would actually do it. But there he was, immediately swooping over to grab Timothée around the waist and holding him steady as the world tilted away.


End file.
